Wednesday, September 12, 2007

One of the Exact Editions innovations is that we render phone numbers clickable (provided that they are in the 'international format'). This means that readers browsing our magazines can to click on the phone number to call the listed phone number (assuming that they have VOIP or Skype), which probably belongs to an advertiser. Here is an example:

The clickability of the phone numbers does not show up on the clipping (the clipping is after all just a fragment of the JPEG) so you will have to click through to the full page to see the live links. But this instant connectivity is a huge advantage of the digital edition over the print edition. I am surprised that the Exact Editions innovation has not yet been more emulated. In fact any decent web site that seeks telephone response should enable this straightforward connectivity. Why aren't phone numbers on web pages standardly clickable (as emails and urls are almost always)? I have no idea, but since Skype is becoming omnipresent and as more web pages are being viewed on mobiles, or iPhones, its an idea whose time has come.

Linkage on the web is so important. It can not be underestimated. Which reminds me, we noticed, via Eoin Purcell, that Google have introduced their own clipping tool, and it seems to be a neat piece of code. But it would be even better if the Google clippings carried a decent citation. With the EE clippings the reader sees where the page reference for the clipping and jumps straight back to the context from which the clipping has been taken. With the Google clipping-citations you jump back to a catalog entry. If you click on the stockists fragment above you go straight to the page. Since this issue of AnOtherMagazine is over 400 pages that precision is helpful!